New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

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sinewav
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

Z-Man wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 9:22 pm to record the gameplay, then do a camera edit pass with

Code: Select all

armagetronad --playback raw.aarec --record edited.aarec
and move just the camera around. Careful, if you press any gameplay relevant keys, you'll desync. Time travel rules apply.
I'll definitely mess this up. I think it's probably better if I just buy a new computer. I've been looking at the Thelio desktops from System76. A friend of mine owes me $1000 for some work, any recommendations for number of cores/thread and GPU? I'm ready to buy one of these immediately.

There are a TON of assets needed for this Steam release. I'll just keep posting stuff here unless you have a better idea. I'll name the files ambiguously as to not trip any NDA that might be involved.

Let's start with the icons since these are platform agnostic. The attached ZIP has two SVG files, large and small. Once icons shrink under 32px they must be reworked to remain discernible. The small SVG is a flat, un-shaded version of the larger one, which makes sense. (Normally I would pull these small ones into a raster editor and tweak the contrast, then redraw them as SVG, but they seem to look OK as is.)
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

Specs call for a "logo" so here are some variations. Steam docs mention a 16:9 aspect ratio which means a stacked logotype would be best here, probably (logo-1.png). Although, they example they give is square, so who knows.

The red/white/blue one is probably what I'll use, but may be white only depending on the hero image (working on that now). Alternate version below with outline only offers some possibilities, but also feels like it's trying too hard. Also included below is a square version. Not having a square logo variation is one of my biggest pet peeves, so I'll be damned if I don't make a square version.
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logo-1.png
logo-outline.png
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

Capsule art attached. The red and yellow gradient version does not scale well and loses a lot of fidelity in small sizes, so the capsules feature the screenshot of the blue and yellow cycles with logotype.

Progress report: I have a good idea for some original art we can use for both the Steam page and in-game title screen. Pretty excited about it, hopefully it will look as good as it does in my brain. I should have something to show by next weekend.
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Light
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by Light »

Z-Man wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 9:22 pm I think I can do the video capture, I just ran a test with SimpleScreenRecorder. Heh, before you do any work, we should check whether I can play back your debug recordings, that's no given :) Can you post a really long one? And before that, check whether you can reach 60 FPS, whatever it takes (yes, floor off is an option).

If you're paying someone, let me at least cover half of it.
I should be able to hit 60 FPS with max display settings and recording. Let me know if you need me to. Would be sad to spend money on that. :P

Also, for Sine. Can you change the camera angle a little when it gets close to the bike? When it hits into it, and loses it by going underneath, it feels like we don't have control. I realize you're using in-game camera for this, so not sure how easily that can be managed, but if it just got close to the bike instead of slamming into it, it would be cleaner in my opinion.

Great job on the cover image and coming up with RetroCycles. "RC" is a nicer short than "AC" to me, and "Arma" tends to lead people towards the FPS game. I wanted to try contributing to this, but my artistic ability is garbage. I really like the direction this is going.
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

Light wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 1:36 pmAlso, for Sine. Can you change the camera angle a little when it gets close to the bike?
Thanks for the feedback, Light. The video is just a demo for what we should aim for. Rather than some generic, static gameplay footage we should utilize the Free Cam for dramatic angles and camera sweeps. Anyone is free to capture footage, but as the self nominated art director I would prefer shots that have great composition!

Like I mentioned earlier, I think it's time for me to get a computer with good graphics capabilities. Learning Blender is on my list for 2020. I just stole a good monitor from work (hi-res, good color), but now I need something to pipe into it. I really want one of these from System76, but I'm pretty ignorant about what is considered "good" and "powerful". I'm quite ignorant when it comes to gaming and video. If you could offer a suggestion (Ryzen 3 or 5 or 7 or ...9?, Radeon vs GeForce?) that would be super helpful. A friend owe me money so I'm tempted to max out a machine.
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by Light »

sinewav wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 5:56 pmA friend owe me money so I'm tempted to max out a machine.
I won't tell you not to, but I wouldn't. You can easily spend like $1200 on a 2080 TI alone, but do you really play games demanding enough to utilize it? Hell, you could look into SLI and double that cost on GPU alone. I would recommend looking at the boss sites and seeing what you actually think you need, then you can pick a motherboard and all to go along with it. I would personally recommend, if you go with AMD, that you do get an AM4+ motherboard and CPU, such as the Ryzen cards, so you can utilize DDR4 memory and not regret it a few years down the road.

http://cpuboss.com
http://gpuboss.com

For example, I play Fortnite on almost max settings with shadows turned off and get about 230 FPS on a GTX 1070 Mobile. I recently built my brother's computer for him, which was mostly focused on Fortnite, so I got a graphics card a little better so he could max out, or use shadows and all and still come close. He ended up going with a 144hz display for now, but he keeps the option to max out a 240hz if he wishes in the future and we kept his budget.

They will also provide benchmarks for different uses, such as if you're using a graphics card for processing, or some game FPS stats as different games will utilize them differently, or be more CPU heavy, etc.

I didn't go into the detailed parts of your link, but you may wanna price shop as well. Locally we have a Micro Center, and they are honestly amazing. You can also price match other places if you find a better price, plus they would be happy to help with any questions. It's a place basically built around building computers, and they have pretty knowledgeable staff.
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

Thanks for the tips, Light! I did some research and I think I'm going to oreder something this weekend.

Back to art, here is a remix of Ed's title screen combined with Retrocycles assets. Since I'm not a 3D design wizard like Ed, I used a crude model I created for my 3D printed Arma Cycle then drew over it in Inkscape. It's not as shinny, but I think it looks pretty kick-ass. This single file can knock out a lot of the checklist. Before I start rearranging the parts and finalizing assets I'll take some feedback on it. In the meantime, there are a few small graphics I can work on.
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remix-ed.jpg
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by Z-Man »

Ah, indeed, all the requirements are public on the page sinewav linked (or one level above). My bad for making a ruckus there.
sinewav wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 6:15 am Specs call for a "logo" so here are some variations. Steam docs mention a 16:9 aspect ratio which means a stacked logotype would be best here, probably (logo-1.png). Although, they example they give is square, so who knows.
Factually, they seem to accept all logo sizes, at least the tool does and allows you to place it sensibly, i.e. it doesn't add any extra border around the image on its own. Dunno about validation later. Half-Life 2's image is the tile all in one line, with an aspect ratio of like 10:1.

I'd go with logo-1 for consistency; the logos of most games are just the logo text, too, so I'd leave out the cycle graphic. Seems like they picked a really, really bad example with Gris there.

The logo is put on top of the hero image. From that follow two requirements:
a) It should have transparency
b) It should have a reasonable contrast to the hero image

We choose the placement and size; it can be in the bottom left corner, top or bottom border centered, or full center. My steam client allows me to customize the logo position for other games if I right click into it; I don't know whether that's something everyone can do or if it's just for partners. Logo-1, with the full internal white, would best fit at the default bottom left corner; the outline, if the inner bits get to be transparent, could also work as centered and huge.

Title image: Nice! Just the purple things (are those the shapes from the rim wall?) look a bit all over the place.
As for the format, we can and should switch from jpeg to png there no problem, it's just a line of code. That would work much better for stylized high-contrast, clear lines images, the jpeg artifacts are really annoying there, especially on big monitors.
sinewav wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 5:56 pm ...self nominated art director
Nominated and elected! See
IRC, earlier wrote:<Z-Man> Lucifer_arma guru3 check out viewtopic.php?f=47&t=38265 Sinewav is suggesting the name "Retrocycles" for Steam. a) I think that is brilliant and b) we should just make him our Art Director.
<Lucifer_arma> also, Z-Man: haven't we made sinewav our art director several times and he just keeps saying no?
I don't remember any of what Lucifer is referring to (doesn't mean much these days), but I count that as a yes.
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

Z-Man wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 4:32 pmWe choose the placement and size;
Ah, good. I was wondering how much control you had. I knew positioning was an option but didn't know their tool allows for resizing. Makes sense that it would. I'll give you a several different logo files to play with because I can't easily test them for responsive design.
Z-Man wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 4:32 pmJust the purple things (are those the shapes from the rim wall?) look a bit all over the place.
I threw that purple stuff on there at the very last second because I wanted more texture and color, but it wasn't well thought out and seems unnecessary since all the elements will jogged around a bit anyway.

Bunch more files coming this weekend (or everything today, IDK). We'll have to wait on the video, but at least a lot of the graphical stuff will be done. This is kinda exciting! Below are some community files:
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

Logos attached, with source SVG (Inkscape) and font for remixing.
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

Backround. Inkscape SVG source attached.
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

I think I've got the checklist completed. I'll wait for direction before working on anything else. Let me know if you need changes.
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game title splash
game title splash
Hero
Hero
Library box art
Library box art
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by Z-Man »

All great stuff.

I have failed so far to inform you and everyone else about the schedule constraints. It's not complicated.
1. When we choose, we submit the store page for review.
2. Valve verify that everything with that is in order and gives us the green light (or comes back with required changes)
3. We publish the store page and open the community. That's when I'll ask you all to wishlist the game and populate the Steam forums.
4. we upload a build of the game, that also gets basic testing.
4. (yes, also, order is not important) We publish the trailer.
5. No sooner than two weeks after step 3, we publish the game.
At step 3 (I think), we can either commit to a release date or just say 'coming soon' and release when ready. Only picking a date is going to give us a chance to appear in the 'coming soon' section of the store for 7.5 seconds.

The bits that are in a crappily-done-by-Z-Man state required for step 1, I think, are these:
- The library hero, the big artsy 1920x620 backround image.
- The big box art/library capsule, 600x900
- I think I forgot to list that one, the comunity group header, 444x208 pixels, for some reason they want a .jpg here.
sine, could you priorize those? We'll only launch step 1 when you say it's ready, I'll PM you relevant screenshots.

The community group header can be like the various capsules.
The way the game title screen you posted is arranged, the library capsule can be cut out from it.

The build is my job, obviously; it's almost done, I just haven't uploaded a build as "Retrocylces" yet, and the alternative title screen isn't in there.
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

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Z-Man wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 11:36 pm The bits that are in a crappily-done-by-Z-Man state required for step 1, I think, are these:
- The library hero, the big artsy 1920x620 backround image.
- The big box art/library capsule, 600x900
- I think I forgot to list that one, the comunity group header, 444x208 pixels, for some reason they want a .jpg here.
sine, could you priorize those? We'll only launch step 1 when you say it's ready, I'll PM you relevant screenshots.
The hero image and box art are in my previous post (sorry, I know I'm posting a lot!). The community assets you mentioned in a PM are in a zip file above. I couldn't find in the documentation a 444x208 image, but your PM said 440px, so that's what I have. Not included in the zip above are these files as JPG: Community Header, a variation, and Community Capsule (smaller, different style art).

I think I'll go through all the assets and PM you a ZIP of the files.
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Re: New Title Screen!? and other cool stuff

Post by sinewav »

There was some ugly pixelation in the box art image I had to get rid of. Here is an updated version.
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library-capsule.png
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